Table of Contents

Slow Website Performance

Slow performance happens from time to time and it can drive you crazy. It drives us crazy too. We have multiple systems in place to try and maximize the speed of our website and minimize the slowness; however, sometimes the Internet just doesn't cooperate.

Troubleshooting

If you are seeing slower-than-normal performance from the StockCharts.com website, there are several things you can do to determine if the problem is on our end, on your end, or somewhere in between.

Check the Speed of Other Websites

The first thing to do is to make sure that you are not experiencing similar slow performance at other websites. If you are, then you need to follow the “Fixing” steps listed below.

Note: Just because other websites are quick and we are slow doesn't necessarily prove that the problem is on our end. Please try the other troubleshooting steps below to narrow things down further.

Check our Independent Uptime Report

Next, you should check our Independent Uptime Report provided by Pingdom.com. The “Response Time” section of the report will tell you if StockCharts.com has been slow for other users throughout the world.

If that report shows response times above 1 second (1000 ms), then there is probably a problem with our website and you might want to let us know.

If our response time is normal (i.e., below 400ms), however, then the problem is probably local to your computer or your Internet connection and you should try the “Fixing” steps listed below.

Check our Twitter feed

Next, check our Twitter feed and see if other people are reporting problems and/or we have sent out any messages about slowness problems. If we are already tweeting about a problem with our site, there's no need to continue troubleshooting on your part.

Fixing Issues on Your End

This may just be a temporary problem located within the Internet itself. If you haven't made any recent changes to your computer's configuration and the slowness just started today, we suggest waiting for a day and see if things clear up on their own.

If the problem persists for several days, then here are some other things you can try:

Try restarting your computer, especially if you haven't restarted it in a while. This can clear out hung or stuck programs and plug-ins that could be slowing things down.

Check to make sure that Internet Security programs like Kaspersky and Norton are not causing the problem. They may be needlessly checking our charts and that can cause slowness. If you use Kaspersky, follow the instructions in our article on troubleshooting Kaspersky issues.

Run an Internet speed test at SpeedTest.net. For accurate results, be sure to click on the map and select a Seattle-based server like TowerStream before beginning your test.

Consider changing the DNS server settings on your computer, so that it points to the free OpenDNS service instead of your ISP's servers. While this does require a little bit of technical knowledge, many people have reported significant improvement in overall internet speed after making this change. For more information, please see our article on Using OpenDNS.

Trying using a different web browser like Firefox (http://firefox.com) or Google Chrome (http://google.com/chrome). If the slowness is due to plugins or a configuration issue with your old browser, switching to a different browser may fix things.

If those suggestions don't solve the problem, you'll need to contact your ISP for assistance.

If you discover the culprit, please let us know so that we can improve our help documentation.